Angie last wrote about our May… There were a lot of great things that happened in May (Kylie graduated, Mallory turned 2, Miranda got married) but the combination of it all was almost too much… almost. We found ourselves counting down the events or “checking them off our lists.” We survived though, and I’m probably being naive to be looking forward to the summer, where I THINK we will have less to do. During the summer we only meet for small group once a month for fellowship and the Sunday school class that we teach is on break. There are no Wednesday nights either, though we both took a break from that this year with Mallory. Just this weekend, we had “nothing” to do. . . so I filled it with a garage project which has left me moaning from all the bending over I did scrubbing and re-scrubbing the floor so I could put down an epoxy coating (www.epoxy-coat.com). It’s drying now… then I have to move everything back into the garage… oh what fun. Sometime during the summer we also want to finish the screened in porch (I think I almost have Angie talked into a TV out there), put in a patio (possibly with a Koi pond), close in the underside of the deck, put up a play set for Mallory, re-stain the deck, re-caulk the windows, seal the driveway and get someone to look at our foundation… those are just my projects. We also are going to help Matt and Lauren put up a fence and possibly build a shed in the back of their house… how many weekends are in a summer?

Kylie’s graduation went great, oh, except for the part where her chair was gone. :) We watched her walk in and then saw her look confused. Kylie usually handles situations like this very well and doesn’t get embarrassed easily. We saw her walk to the far side of the floor, then back again, then to the far side once more and then back again. Seems her card was missing and the teachers on either side kept telling her to go to the other side. She finally told the teacher on the first side to move over and get another chair. He almost refused until she said (I imagine through gritted teeth) “This is MY graduation”… he complied. We took her a piece of paper with her name on it as this is how they keep up with the order, but just as I got there, her card showed up… interesting. Some other kids were missing their name cards, so they used the paper.

After graduation we went to Buca Di Beppo for lunch, which was great. Then we dropped Dad, his friend Darlene, and Faye at the house before hitting a couple of the grad parties for Kylie’s friends. The first one was for Trevor and the second was for Michael… ah yes Michael… Kylie’s boyfriend. I was so happy that she almost went the entire year without a boyfriend. One less thing to shoot, I mean worry about. But she had liked Michael for a while, and he really does seem like a good guy and a nice kid. We’ve had the opportunity to spend some time with him and we like him a lot. He treats Kylie well and he actually even came over today to help me paint. I’m glad she has found a guy that she likes who respects her and makes her happy. We’ll see how it goes over the long hall… she’s headed to Chattanooga and he’s going to Univ. of Kentucky… at least for a semester he says.

Angie is uploading some pictures/videos from his grad party. They have a big hill in their front yard, and they set up about 80 feet of plastic and created a “red neck slip and slide” complete with a sprinkler and a bottle of Dawn at the top. The kids loved it, and we loved watching them roll off the end of it and into the grass. Unfortunately for you, we forgot our bathing suits.

Mallory’s birthday was great. We had most of the family over and a few friends. It worked out well that graduation and Mal’s birthday were close so that family could travel and hit both in the same trip. She’s two now and acting every bit of it. I give her a hard time, but she really is a good kid. But she definitely has a little bit of attitude when she doesn’t get her way. . . she must get that from her mom. She got a lot of gifts for her birthday… all of which we’ll eventually have to find somewhere to put. Mom and Barry gave her a water table which she just loves. Angie is uploading some video I believe which shows her playing with it. She has figured out how to be sly or sneaky… which is funny. I was sitting next to her while she played in the water table, and then she filled up a cup, cut her eyes at me in a devilish way, and then threw the water at me… It was hilarious. Mallory also danced with Brady… her future husband. Angie is uploading that video as well. Priceless.

Angie is halfway through her pregnancy, and we went to the doctor for the ultrasound. We are still choosing not to know whether it’s a boy or a girl. We’re not really sorry if that disappoints anyone, but we’ll pretend we are if that helps. Because we didn’t find out with Mallory, we should be pretty prepared for whatever God sends our way. We do know that it’s only one, so there won’t be any TV series started about us, fortunately or unfortunately. The ultrasound was neat, and we got some really good pictures of our little one’s hands. We saw 2 arms and 2 legs, and 10 fingers and 10 toes. That was all good. We did see a heart, brain, brain stem, nose bone, kidneys, stomach, bladder, leg bones, and arm bones… it’s amazing what they look for and what they can see.

I think that about catches us up. Ah… one more thing… Mallory got new tubes in her ears… which is a good thing. One of her tubes fell out and she had 3 ear infections in a month. The surgery went without a hitch and she’s been clear since. The wonders of medicine…

Ok… that’s enough for now… I imagine the next installment will be from Angie, which probably means that it will be more entertaining. I’m really just the clean-up guy stepping in to help out when we get behind. It’s all good though… the pay’s ok but the benefits can’t be beat. We wish everyone well and hope to see you all soon.